Convictions and Charges Voided In '89 Central Park Jogger Attack

By SUSAN SAULNY

Published: December 20, 2002

Thirteen years after an investment banker jogging in Central Park was savagely beaten, raped and left for dead, a Manhattan judge threw out the convictions yesterday of the five young men who had confessed to attacking the woman on a night of violence that stunned the city and the nation.

In one final, extraordinary ruling that took about five minutes, Justice Charles J. Tejada of State Supreme Court in Manhattan granted recent motions made by defense lawyers and Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, to vacate all convictions against the young men in connection with the jogger attack and a spree of robberies and assaults in the park that night. [Excerpts, Page B5.]

The judge ruled based on new evidence pointing to another man, Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer-rapist who stepped forward in January, as the probable sole attacker of the jogger. He was linked to the rape by DNA and other evidence, as the reliability of the earlier confessions and other trial evidence was cast in doubt.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly reacted yesterday to the judge's decision with a bluntly worded statement that underscored the breach that had opened in recent weeks between the Police Department and the district attorney's office over the case.

Mr. Kelly challenged the credibility of Mr. Reyes's claim that he had acted alone. He also complained that the district attorney's office had denied his detectives access to important evidence needed for the department's own investigation.

Technically, Justice Tejada's ruling made a new trial possible. But after the judge vacated the convictions, Peter Casolaro, an assistant district attorney, immediately responded with a motion dismissing the indictments and forgoing a new trial.

Justice Tejada replied, ''The motion is granted. Have a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.''

Then the stuffy, crowded courtroom on the 15th floor of 100 Centre Street erupted in screams, cheers, applause, and weeping by family and supporters of the young men -- Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Kharey Wise and Raymond Santana.

They were all teenagers at the time of the attack on April 19, 1989. Now they are 28 to 30 years old and have all completed prison terms of 7 to 13 years for the park offenses. None were in court yesterday.

''I think I stopped breathing for a minute,'' said Angela Cuffee, Mr. Richardson's sister. ''I can't even tell you -- it doesn't feel real. I can't even speak.''

Clint Berry called his friend Mr. Salaam in Atlanta and then handed his cellphone to Mr. Salaam's mother, Sharonne. ''It's over! It's over!'' she said to her son. ''I love you, baby.''

Mr. Perkins said the men did not appear in court because they wanted to get on with their lives and did not want to be featured in the news.

The judge's action was a once unimaginable U-turn in a case that had stoked the fears about crime that were so rampant in New York in the late 1980's. The two jogger trials were racially charged, as the black and Hispanic youths stood accused of gang-raping a white professional woman during a series of assaults and robberies in the park. Few investigators doubt that some or all of the five were involved in other crimes in the park. One was said to have called it a night of wilding, a term the police had never heard before.

Justice Tejada told the courtroom: ''After careful consideration of all the papers and all the arguments made in the papers presented by all parties, and for the reasons in my written statement, the motions are granted as to all the convictions.''

Later in the day, Mr. Morgenthau released a statement: ''No purpose would have been served by a retrial of the defendants on any of the charges in the original indictment. Accordingly, Judge Tejada has also dismissed the indictments in their entirety at our request.''

After the ruling, relatives of the men appeared at a news conference in the office of Mr. Perkins. Except for Mr. Santana's father, also Raymond, they were all women, and formed a kind of grim sisterhood. ''I wouldn't call it friendship exactly, but we have grown to know each other and to give strength to each other,'' said Aisha Salaam, Yusef's sister.

Michael Warren and Roger Wareham, lawyers for three of the men, spoke of justice denied for so long, justice granted yesterday, and demands of reparations. Civil suits would come, they said. They contend that the confessions were coerced by the police.

''We must first obtain justice on behalf of these young men, on behalf of their families who have been put through a terrible ordeal,'' Mr. Warren said. ''Their youth was stolen from them, was snatched away from them, they were not able to enjoy the fruits of a childhood simply because they existed behind the cold prison bars for crimes they did not commit.''

But Mr. Kelly rejected any sense of police misconduct: ''The judge's ruling has neither exonerated the defendants nor found any collusion or coercion on the part of the police.''

Some family members seethed with rage at the police, the original prosecutors and the news media. Others said they were simply relieved that their struggle was over.

''We won, and it ain't because someone is doing us a favor,'' said Mr. Wise's mother, Deloris. ''We won because we were innocent from Day 1.''

The elder Mr. Santana said that his son's conviction had broken his family apart, but ''now I don't have to hide my face anyplace.''